WANTED-timing belt tesioner wrench and dial gauge

[diesel smoke]

Hi all,

I need the timing belt tensioner wrench and a dial gauge.(to set timing) I'm only 16 and don't have alot of cash so its harder to buy new... So if anyone has a used set that still works and doesn't want alot for it; let me know...  

[burn_your_money]

I use my hands or a nail/scribe etc for the tensioner. It does not get tightened very tight at all

[Vincent Waldon]

Or a fork with two bent tines.

Or right angle snap-ring pliers from Princess Auto.

Unfortunately, no substitution for the dial indicator and adapter.  Well, you can get an $18 dial indicator from Princess Auto, but you need the adapter no matter what.

[Vincent Waldon]

Yeah... I remember reading that... this is the part that made me pause a bit:

Rotate the top of the pump back toward the head until you feel the bolt touch the pump piston.

Might have to do an experiment or two... I wondered if you could detect the pump piston just touching the bolt, vs. mashing it down.... the thinking being there's probably a fair number of thousandths of an inch between "touchdown" and "mashdown" ??

Another thought I had was a slight variation on the beautiful tool tawney built to hold the plunger et. al. in place while changing the high pressure O-ring in situ.

 It might be possible to mark excursions at 0, 0.95mm, 1.00mm, and 1.05mm, and so on on the outside of the plunger.  Rotate the engine back until the plunger stops moving and then screw the tool in or out until it hits the 0 hash mark. Rotate back to TDC and then rotate the pump till you hit the hash mark on the plunger you're after.

Having a spring touch the plunger seems a bit more gentle than the hard stop of a bolt, too ?

I personally hate that damn dial indicator some days.. pulling various bits off to make room for it, having it bind and loosen... all we really need is something that threads into an 8x1 hole and reads one distance.

Paging tawney !!!

(sorry OP, we're getting a bit off topic, but we just might save ya 50 bucks in the end !)

[Tuppence]

The dial indicator can be described as a tool which exaggerates or magnifies distances by about 100 times so the human eye can 'see' very small differences.  I doubt if the process VW, (is that just coincidence ) describes can do much more than get us close to a desired setting; don't think we could see such fine calibrations.  Repeatability is an issue: if you find a setting you like, it's nice to be able to go back to it after changing the timing belt or whatever, and I don't think there's a substitute for the dial indicator in that regard: we need to have those small distances magnified if we're going to see them well.  However, I'm intrigued by the method Libby describes; someone needs to give it a try and then check results with the dial indicator.  If the threads had no 'slop' at all, it could be a very good substitute for the real tool: wrap the brass bolt threads with teflon tape or something?   Experiment with it VW, and let us know.  

Steve